Musicians are not transparent conductors of the composer’s ideas to the listener’s ear but are made of muscle and bone. The opera is not a transparent institution serving the spectators such works as the composers create, the directors stage and the conductors lead. Jagoda Szmytka and Michał Zadara create the opera and take the spectators on a journey through the anatomy of the sound, the body and the opera.

Transcryptum is an object, an event or an artistic operation, a procedure containing an imprint of trauma with all the tracks leading to it. The trauma that is the leitmotif of Wojtek Blecharz’ project may be interpretet as a kind of space isolating and partially paralysing memory. Trauma creates a secret place in memory – a crypt that isolates the opera’s heroine from getting to know the absolute truth about herself.

Poster for the production, designed by Adam Żebrowski, picture: Science Picture Co/Science Faction/Corbis